The video card is an essential computer component that you should carefully consider when you are building your own computer. Without a graphics card, your homebuilt computer cannot display images and pictures.
Many midrange graphics cards are built inside modern motherboards. If you will be using your homebuilt computer as a workstation to handle your extra paperwork, you will not need to buy a separate graphics card. If you intend to play the latest computer games in your homebuilt computer, then you need to purchase a discrete video card, also known as a dedicated video card. More often than not, dedicated video cards pack more power than the video cards which have been integrated into a motherboard. This makes them ideal for a gaming PC system.
There are two popular video card brands that you can choose from: Nvidia and ATI. Both brands offer an impressive array of cards. Both also offer you the ability to use up to four video cards simultaneously in one computer system. Tucking more than one high-end video inside your system will render awesome graphics when you run computer games and heavy multimedia programs!
Modern graphic cards are attached to the motherboard using PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) slots. To use two or four video cards together, you should get Nvidia’s SLI cards or ATI’s CrossFire cards. They will only work on motherboards that support them though. So make sure that your motherboard will permit the synchronization of two or more graphics cards.
You may find some old AGP cards out there. Avoid purchasing these cards because they are outdated. They will only work on old motherboards that have an AGP slot.
Stick to modern, high-quality computer hardware if you want to build a high-performance computer. A low-end video card will render poor graphics either way you look at it.
